Rapist mechanic started abusing schoolgirls when they were in primary school

A Northleach mechanic who repeatedly raped one young girl and sexually abused another was jailed for 16 years at Gloucester Crown Court.

Both girls lived near Cirencester at the time Kevin Blackwell abused them over a period of more than a decade between the 1990s and mid 2000s, the court was told.

Blackwell, 52, of no fixed address in Northleach, had denied a total of 12 charges of rape and sexual assault of the girls but was convicted by a jury of nine of the counts yesterday following a trial that lasted all last week.

Kevin Blackwell was jailed for 16 years

He claimed his victims had made up the allegations against him but could not offer any explanation of why they would do that.

The judge, Recorder Sarah Vaughan-Jones QC, sentenced him to 12 years jail for four rapes of the younger girl and one of indecency with her. She added four years consecutively for his four offences of sexually assaulting the older girl.

As 46-year-old Warren was being taken down to the cells at Gloucester Crown Court he made a thinly veiled threat to the probation officer who had reported him for his abuse to her on January 5.

Sobbing man, who drove while on drugs, begs judge not to send him to prison

Distraught Owen Davies, 38, desperately begged a judge for another chance after he was jailed for framing an innocent man on a drug-driving charge.

But the judge at Gloucester Crown Court, Recorder Sarah Vaughan-Jones QC, refused to change her six months sentence for Owen Davies, of Beechley Drive, Cardiff, who had admitted driving while banned, under the influence of drugs, and perverting the course of justice.

Owen Davies

Davies, who was in breach of an earlier suspended sentence, began crying and said, as the judge jailed him: "Please, please, let me have one chance. I'll lose my flat, everything."

He was then heard shouting abuse as he was taken down to the cells.

Former soldier admits wounding one man and assaulting another during Gloucester incident

A 20 year old ex-soldier who admitted wounding another man with intent to cause grievous bodily harm was told by a judge that he is certain to receive a jail term.

He was told that Apperley, who lives in a home for military veterans in Church Road, Longlevens, Gloucester, had been medically discharged from the army 18 months ago.

Apperley pleaded guilty to wounding Timothy Errock with intent to cause GBH on December 19, 2017 and assaulting Joseph Cuprit causing actual bodily harm on the same occasion.

The court heard he has no previous criminal convictions but has one police caution on his record.

Drug-dealing brothers and boy, 16, told to expect jail

Three young men who admitted involvement in supplying drugs in Gloucestershire have been warned they are facing prison terms.

Judge Michael Cullum told Mactonto Chirwa, 19, Macxavier Chirwa, 23, and a 16-year-old who cannot be named because of his age "all sentencing options remain open, and that includes custody".

The named pair, from Brackendale Drive in Walsall pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis with Macxavier's offence dated between April 18, 2014 and September 22, 2016.

Mactonto's offence spanned a lesser time period between the 1st and 22nd of September 2016.

Mactonto Chirwa and Macxaviar Chirwa

Both of them denied being concerned in the supply of heroin and cocaine between September 1 and 22, 2016, but the 16 year old boy admitted those offences, albeit on a basis that he did so "under influence and pressure" relating to debts he had built up through his use of cannabis.

Prosecutor Alistair Hegarty asked the judge to grant the crown time to consider the acceptability of the pleas the Chirwas had entered, and whether they accepted the basis of plea the boy offered when he admitted the class A drug offences.

A Lloyds bank manager who befriended a trusting elderly client and stole £33,000 from her - much of which he gambled away - was jailed for 14 months.

Danny Kelly, 28, blew the 89-year-old's money on a failed Nigerian oil company investment, betting and night life as well as general living, Gloucester Crown Court heard.

He had started helping her with her finances after her partner died in 2011 and she regarded him not just as her bank manager and adviser but as a friend, said prosecutor Janine Wood.

Danny Kelly

Kelly, of Martin Close, Bicester, Oxfordshire, pleaded guilty to theft of £30,000 from the woman who lives in Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, between January 1 and February 28 2015.

He also pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation between October 1 and 30 2015 by convincing her to give him £3,000 to invest in a bond which he said would return better interest for her than the bank.

The judge was told that the previous day Graham broke the news to the eldest of his children that he was about to be locked up.

On the morning of his sentencing the girl had been so upset that her school had called Graham asking him to drop in on her and try to console her, said defence lawyer Jason Coulter.

He said that was the reason Graham had arrived late at court. By the time Graham turned up at the courthouse with two bags of luggage ready for jail the judge had already issued a warrant for his arrest.

Burglar refused to drop knife so police officer felled him with a punch and a 'well placed knee'

Soon after being released on parole from a four-year jail sentence for walk-in burglaries, Robin Mitchell went back to his old ways and raided the same Cheltenham hotel twice in a few days, a court heard.

The second time the 38-year-old burgled the Wyastone Hotel he was caught red-handed because the owner had installed CCTV following his first raid five days earlier, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

He was seen on CCTV to be carrying a knife as he prowled around the hotel. Police were called and surrounded the building.

Robin Mitchell (Image: Gloucestershire police)

When one of the officers confronted Mitchell he refused to drop the weapon - so the officer felled him with a punch to the face and a well placed knee, said prosecutor Ken Bell.

Mitchell, of Bush Court, Cheltenham, who refused to be brought to court from prison, admitted the two burglaries of the hotel on November 5 and 10 last year and was jailed for two and a half years.

A teenaged burglar whose raid on a Gloucester couple's home while they slept left them traumatised has walked free from court.

Benjamin Coleman, 18, of Whaddon Road, Cheltenham, pleaded guilty at Gloucester Crown Court to burgling the maisonette home of Katy Havers and Mike Hallun in Graham Gardens, Estcourt Road, on the night of August 23 last year.

Prosecutor Janine Wood said Hudson's mother Nancy, now 85, suffers from vascular dementia and has been living at Brookthorpe Care Home near Gloucester since 2013.

Mark Hudson

Hudson was appointed by the Court of Protection to take care of her affairs after his brother initially had power of attorney, only to have it removed from him because Gloucestershire County Council had 'concerns.'

Her house in Abbeydale, Gloucester, was sold in 2013 for £133,500 and the balance of the proceeds was paid into Hudson's joint bank account with his wife.

He also received all his mother's pension payments - a total of almost £27,000.

A homeless man who groomed a teenage Forest of Dean girl for sex was jailed for six months after flouting the the terms of a suspended sentence he received for the offence almost two years ago.

Michael Smith, now 20, was arrested in March 2016 when he arrived at Cinderford bus station after travelling 260 miles to meet the girl he had been chatting to on Facebook.

He appeared before Gloucester Crown Court in May that year and received a 12 months jail term suspended for two years with conditions including supervision and a 30 day rehabilitation activity requirement.